Half Past
by Neekie
Summary: LA, 1959. A late night, Cab Calloway, and an addiction Mick can't kick. Mick/Coraline.


Title: Half Past

Author: Neekie

Rating: T

Summary: A late night, Cab Calloway, and an addiction Mick can't kick. Mick/Coraline

Warnings: Strong language and mentions of drug use; also features a much darker side of Mick than we're familiar with.

Disclaimer: CBS owns Moonlight; no profit is being made from this story. Kids: DON'T DO DRUGS.

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_1959._

It was half past two in the morning, and Mick decided he should probably head home.

Home. Funny, really—his current home was a shitty little hole in the wall, in a shitty little part of the city, which was populated by people who were, generally, pretty shitty.

There were advantages, however, to living where he did. The bodies left in dark alleys there never showed up in the news. Hell, even people walking past ignored them. Most usually hoped that they were just drunk and passed out; passersby tried not to look too close. Sometimes, he'd actually left them like that, alive; his control was considerably better than it had been seven years ago.

And if a lot of the bodies were those of muggers and rapists and armed robbers—which his neighborhood provided in abundance—well, he was no longer drowning in guilt. Dog-paddling madly, maybe, but…

He shook his head, forcibly dislodging the thoughts that were piling up like dead leaves. It was time to go. Were he still human, he'd be stumbling out of the bar stool and making his merry way to home and bed. Of course, were he still human… He shook his head again. Self-pity only drew out the days, and he already had a lot of those ahead of him.

Anyway, if he were a human, he'd be drunk and temporarily removed, if not relieved, from his sorrows. Sleep would come a little bit easier that night. Being what he was meant that he couldn't get drunk, and bedtime was a long way away. He had some hunting to do if he meant to stave off the hunger pains and the bloodlusting madness that accompanied it.

He had heard of a new trend that was sweeping through the upper classes of LA. A lot of vampires were choosing to get their blood from hospitals and blood banks; it was readily available and came from willing donors. But it was expensive, and he had no money. He had to make do with what was available to him.

And there it was, an available dinner at a price he could afford. Mick had been keeping an eye on the man in the corner of the bar for the better part of two hours. The man, for his part, had been keeping an eye on the woman finishing her drink up front.

The woman had come with two friends, both of whom had left to go dancing. She stayed behind, saying she was tired and that she just wanted to finish her beer and go home. The second her friends had gone out the door, the man's gaze became intently trained on her, watching as she set down her glass and stood up. A minute after she exited the bar, the other man got up to follow.

Mick counted to three and stood up as well. He threw down a few bills for the beer he hadn't touched and headed out towards the cramped alley behind the bar where he knew the man would be waiting.

Four minutes later, he was wiping the blood from his mouth as the woman, who had not even heard the man treading softly behind her, reached the curb and flagged down a taxi.

Mick turned away, shrugging off his jacket as the warm blood flushed throughout his body. He'd nearly reached the street when he heard the music playing from the bar.

Minnie the Moocher. He hadn't heard that song in a long time. God, when was the first time he'd heard it? That's right. 1930. He was eight years old and completely entranced by this wonderful thing called jazz. He'd decided that he was going to be Cab Calloway when he grew up. Of course, he let go of that hope when it became apparent he couldn't sing to save his life, but that was okay, because a decade later, jazz had something else to offer him: The guitar. From then on, Mick was hooked. His father wanted him to be a doctor, but Mick wanted to play the guitar for the rest of his life.

Mick's lips twisted briefly at the idea of where that life had brought him. He'd met Coraline when he was playing at a gig. It was a rotten job, that night. He'd wanted to be in a real club, showing off what he could do. However, he'd returned from Europe to find that his father, a widower, had died from liver failure. He'd inherited a tiny house, five hundred bucks, and some broken furniture, and he'd had to rebuild his life from the ground up. With his father dead, he longer felt the need to continue in medicine after the war, and he turned back to music. Not a whole lot of money came his way, though, and he'd resigned himself to…making do.

Damn, he was feeling especially broody tonight. He edged back up towards the bar and stood just outside the doorway, listening.

_"Hi de hi de hi de hi…"_

As he was standing with his back to the sidewalk, he didn't notice the well-dressed woman with her dark hair in curls walk past. But they both froze immediately after, their noses tilted slightly up as each recognized the other's scent.

He clenched his fist. Unclenched it, turned around.

There was Coraline, completely untouched by the years. Had she not been careful to keep with the times, she might as well have been wearing the dress she wore when they'd met. It was as if thinking about that night had called her to him.

"Hello, Mick," said Coraline, smiling softly, like only a few days had passed since they'd last seen each other.

He stared at her, and all the misery and loneliness of the past seven years slammed into him with the force of a brick wall. The bitterness rose in his throat like bile.

Suddenly, he longed to tell her how weary he'd grown of this half-assed, half-passed life, and all he wanted to do was cup her mouth with his and let her breathe fire into him again.

Coraline tilted her head towards the music, humming along. _"Kicking the gong around_." Her eyes flashed darkly at him. "Come with me," she said.

"Where?" he asked stupidly.

"Just come," she breathed.

His mouth framed the word _no, _but her hand caught hold of his hand, and her lips caught hold of his lips, and he'd followed her down the street before he'd even realized it.

Still humming, Coraline led him into another bar, this time going all the way back to a small room off of the main lounge. Hazy, oily smoke filled the air.

Mick's nose twitched. He suddenly remembered the fields littered with bodies where he and the other medics administered morphine to screaming men, trying not to look at the ripped flesh and shattered bone—. He breathed deeply and pushed the images away, trying to bring other, calmer memories to the surface. He also recognized the scent from other bars in Europe; although here, the smoke lacked the aroma and the atmosphere of the opium dens he remembered: That of cooking poppy seeds and a decadence that smelled faintly of decay.

This was heroin: Faster, sharper. Refined, but lacking the glittery opulence of opium.

Mick brought his lips to Coraline's ear. "What are we doing here? It won't work on us."

The corner of Coraline's mouth curved. She gazed lazily across the room. Her eyes settled on one emaciated, dazed man in the room, and she pointed him out to Mick. "He's overdosed. He's going to die tonight."

Mick allowed Coraline to direct him outside and wait for her. He didn't know how she did it, but clearly she'd managed to coax the poor fellow out onto the street without drawing any attention.

Coraline presented the man—the body—to him like a present, all wrapped up and tied with a bow.

He stepped back, shaking his head. "I just—I just ate."

"Just one taste," said Coraline. She put her own lips to the man's throat and sucked. When she lifted her head and gave Mick a pleased, bloody grin, he gave in and drank from the same wound.

While smoking, ingesting, and injecting psychoactive chemicals didn't work for vampires, apparently drinking blood saturated with them did. The high faded after only thirty seconds, but it was warm and glorious. He leaned bonelessly against the wall, his head spinning and his eyes wide open.

Coraline gazed at him with smoky, half-lidded eyes and gave a laugh like a muted bell.

He followed her all the way home. They made love with their teeth and nails, with a passionate, destructive hunger that tore their bodies apart almost faster than their skin could heal. He woke up in the middle of the day staring at her angelic face, with his blood dried at the corner of her mouth and caked under her fingernails.

He abruptly wondered if Coraline had lied to him, had told him that the man was going to die just to get him to drink with her.

He left as quickly as he could.

"_He gave her his townhouse and his racing horses_

_Each meal she ate was a dozen courses_

_Had__ a million dollars worth of nickels and dimes_

_She sat around and counted them all a million times__."_

Fin.

Author 's Notes: "Minnie the Moocher" is a song about young Minnie and her "cokey" (cocaine) boyfriend. "Kicking the gong around" refers to passing around a dish of opium.

As I wasn't alive in 1959, and I'm not even old enough to be allowed in a bar, I can't promise total accuracy about some of the details in the story, particularly regarding drug use in the late fifties. I did my best with the research, but I welcome any additional knowledge in the comments.


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